Libraries are (or at least should be) magical places. And sometimes they succeed at that beyond imagination. Post your library pr0n here. I'll start things off with the Peabody Library in Baltimore - a wonder of wonders that gives me the same spine-tingling awe as Amiens Cathedral:

It's hard to find decent images of the interior of Biltmore House because they don't allow photography inside the structure.

In addition to the books -- which you can still peruse if you are a researcher with permission from the Estate -- perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the library is the ceiling. The painting is called The Chariot of Aurora and was taken from a palace in Venice.

Here's a link to a good shot that someone snuck inside the library, showing the ceiling.

__________________"Asheville air affects me like champagne; it goes to my head. I'm apt to do things for which I will be sorry in the grim dawn of New York." -- William G. Raoul, 1898"After 30 years here, all I know is Asheville is a place where old souls and terrible angels walk among us..." -- Dale Neal, 2015

I was thinking the the Detroit Public Library - Main Library looked incredibly familiar to St. Louis's inside and out, and then realized they are by the same archtitect. In fact, the one in St. Louis looks like the Detroit Institute of Art right across the street from the Main Library.

I love the sayvings around the top of the building, as well as the labeling of the avenues on each end of the building. It's the kind of detail you just don't see, anymore.

I'm not a fan of the architecture, but the sheer size of the Library of Michigan in Lansing is impressive. Supposedly, it's the second largest state library in the country. The building includes the state archives and the state historical museum, as well.

Unfortunately almost every library built after 1940 or so are godawful modernist architectural abominations. Almost all of the Carnegie libraries were good looking and a list/photos of them can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library

__________________"If there is anything to be gained by honesty, then we shall
be honest; if we must dupe, then let us be scoundrels.”- Frederick the Great

__________________The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth GalbraithWe must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.Elie Wiesel

The British Library in London was a controversial building. The original library was part of the British Museum with the main reading room being the British Museums reading room which is still in use. The new library was designed to both blend in with the beautiful listed St Pancras station next door, to be very functional and to help regenerate the once seedy St Pancras/Kings Cross Area which was once more famous for prostitution and other such unsavoury activities.

The Library opened in 1998 and since this time has become a much loved institution due to it's functionality and it being a driving force in terms of investment in this area of London, with a £600 million Medical Research Centre, the Francis Crick Institution currently being built next door to the library, massive investment in St Pancras International next door (and train journey times between London and Paris set to be cut to less than 2 hours), whilst the whole Kings Cross Area as well as the station are currently undergoing massive redvelopment.

This contrasts with the fortunes of the French National Library, a building designed to shout it's presence as a moument to the late President Mitterrand, and which has been criticised for being windwept, unwelcoming and not meeting the functions of the public it serves. The Parisan Bibliothèque nationale has been plagued with problems not least the fact that they had to buy blinds after they realised the sun streaming through the windows was ruining the books, whilst the windswept space between the French Libraries four main buildings has also been widely criticised.

The real star of this area is St Pancras and not the British Library, and the Library was designed with this in mind does, not wishing to detract from the beautiful gothic station and it's surroundings.